choosing a holiday card with artifact uprising.

November 28, 2017

This post is sponsored by Artifact Uprising, encouraging folks to “give the gift of photographs.”

For the past several years, we’ve sent Artifact Uprising holiday photo cards. This season, Artifact Uprising has more than eighty original holiday cards for families to choose from and they invited me to try out a few of their different designs to see what I’d like best.

I’ve narrowed my list of favorites down to four, and would love to hear which one you guys love best.

In exchange for helping me decide on a design, here are my top four tips for capturing a card-worthy family photo. (Especially for anyone tasked with getting wriggly little guys into the frame.)

+ Choose a cozy spot. Silas is very eager to be walking, but not so great at standing still (or safely) for long periods of time. We needed a soft surface where these guys could pose for an easy shot without enduring too much parental art direction.

+ Pick a simple backdrop. Doesn’t matter if it’s a vintage headboard or a plain white wall, if you’re not a professional (and even if you are), you’ll have an easier time of capturing a solid shot if there’s not too much competing for attention in the background.

+ Dress in comfy clothes. I’m the first to admit that festive holiday clothes look sweet on little guys, but here’s some encouragement to keep things relatively simple. Too many layers or accessories or starchy shirts and you’re bound to spend more time fussing with your subjects than capturing them on camera. Decide on a simple outfit and then don’t worry about perfecting the details. We had falling overall straps, bunched up tights, and pulled off socks, but the kids were smiling, which is all that we were hoping for.

+ Take a million photos. Trust me when I say there were a whole lotta duds taken before I got these few card-worthy shots. Set that camera to the fastest shutter speed you’re able and snap away. Then hunt for the one or two diamonds in the rough.

And now for the results… These were my four favorite card options. Which one do you guys like best?

The designers at Artifact Uprising are masters of white space. I especially love their use of it in the Joy Multi-Image Card. It features three good-sized images without being too crowded. What do you think?

For folks wanting something with a little extra sparkle, the Foil-Stamped Merry Card offers a bit of shimmer without being overdone. Foil options include gold, copper, and silver (shown here!). I love the super simple message on this one. Anyone else?

I love using carol lyrics on my holiday cards and Joy to the World is one of my very favorites. This card isn’t foil stamped, but the graphic text still pops. Pretty, isn’t it?

My personal favorite for two years running now is the Peace Holiday Card. We used this one with a photo of Faye last year and I’d love to switch things up this time around, but I also love the sweetness and the full-bleed image. Which one do you guys like best? I’ll follow up next week with the design I settle on, but I’d love to hear your thoughts!

In case you’d like to know more about Artifact Uprising, their cards are printed on 100% recycled card stock. Their default envelope option is my very favorite recycled kraft paper, but for an extra 15 cents, customers can choose white or gray options as well. Cards start at $1.25 per card and can be purchased in sets from 10 – 300 (in increments of 10 and 25 cards).

Also brand new this season? An envelope addressing service. If the time commitment of sending cards means that you put it off entirely, perhaps outsourcing the addressing portion of it could convince you? I, for one, am extremely pumped to hand off that task to someone else.

If you’d like to place a holiday card order of your own, Artifact Uprising is offering Reading My Tea Leaves readers a 20% discount on all orders with the code RMTL20. Offer ends December 5, 2017.

This post is sponsored by Artifact Uprising. All opinions are my own. Thanks for supporting the brands that support Reading My Tea Leaves.

I love the JOY and the MERRY cards! The option of multiple photos is so wonderful, but I’m also always partial to Artifact Uprisings foil stamped cards. We did manage to decide on a non-foil stamped one this year to get the multiple photos thing though! So maybe that’s my final vote for you as well, haha! Your photos do look incredible, in both. Good luck deciding!

These designs are gorgeous (and so are the babes!). But I’m single and I have no idea what pictures I would use. Maybe a nature or city scene? There is a gargantuan Christmas tree in front of my city’s State House that would make a pretty photo. Perhaps that…

Also, just an aside, it always intrigues me how many Americans make and send out holiday cards featuring family photos. In NZ we’re far more likely to buy a pack or two of cards and envelopes, or make a few special cards to send to family. My Nana used to spend half the year cross-stitching hers and they have been kept by everyone who received one.